Comfort Food

It was not yet night, but it was as dark as if it were. The streetlights had been turned on in the cities, to fight off the gloom, to suggest normality.

It hadn’t really worked; most people had fled to the hills – What is it about impending doom that sends people out into the countryside? – or had gone underground or were in the midst of a last minute, panic-stricken flight towards various houses of worship.

Magda and David, though, had stayed put. What was there to do, really? They had planned this evening months ago, well before the mists had begun, before the scientists had announced that Earth’s days were numbered. They really didn’t think there was anything they could do to stop what had apparently been in motion for as long as the planets themselves had been circling the sun. Nor did they believe there was anywhere particularly safe to hide.

And Richard and Eve were game. They had been looking forward to coming to dinner, too, and had reached pretty much the same conclusion about the end of the world as their friends.

Magda was in the midst of preparing what she was fondly referring to as her “end of the world supper” when their guests arrived.

“It smells wonderful in here!” chorused Richard and Eve as David opened the door. They smiled with sincere warmth, seemingly oblivious to the wisps of darkness that threatened at the door and wrapped around the windows.

Richard shook hands with David as they entered, his brow furrowed somewhat, his salt and pepper hair and the shoulders of his woollen overcoat dusted with the snow-like substance that had been blowing around with the mist. He put a hand on Eve’s back, helping her off with her coat. She was petite, elfish, with long, blond hair, and had dressed for the occasion in one of her hand-made dresses, this one grey wool with a red velvet sash tied at the waist.

Magda’s voice greeted them from down the hallway in the kitchen. “If the world was ending,” Magda replied wryly, “I would want to eat this dinner as my last meal.”

The house, though starkly white with soaring ceilings and open spaces, was not cold, but welcoming and comforting. David had dimmed the lights, lit candles and placed them around the room. Their light danced from the countertop and the centre of the white marble dinner table. The effect was cozy, golden, and it banished the fear and worry and darkness that surrounded the house.

Magda opened the oven, pushing back her short, black hair back with one hand as a burst of fragrant, lemon and thyme-scented heat engulfed her. She poked at the chicken roasting on the remains of several quartered lemons.

“What is that I smell?” asked Richard, coming over to peer in at the dinner. The oven lights momentarily reflected like sparks in his dark brown eyes as he bent close and inhaled deeply, the wrinkles on his forehead smoothing as he relaxed.

“It’s zataar. Have you heard of it? It’s a Middle Eastern mixture, made of thyme, sumac, salt and sesame seeds. I’ve rubbed it all over the chicken, along with olive oil and lemon juice, and also mixed it into the caramelized onions and mini eggplants. I hope you like it, it’s sort of everywhere! We’re also having rice with lemon wedges and I made some tahini. It’s a cozy, sunny sort of meal.”

“Hi, we’re glad you came,” she added, giving him a hug.

“We used our own thyme,” explained David with pride. “For the zataar. We had been growing it on the roof and it was a small bush by the time I decided I should use it.”

A shadow passed across his face, briefly clouding his blue eyes before he continued. “You know, when the mists started to take over. It’s amazing how much bush it takes to make a cup of dried thyme,” he finished a bit wistfully.

When dinner was ready, David opened the bottle of 40 year old Margaux he had been saving for a special occasion, and filled the four glasses.

“To the people we chose to spend our last night with; thank you for joining us tonight,” he said as he held his glass aloft, the ruby coloured wine glowing in the candlelight.

Four heads bowed over the plates and they descended into a momentary silence as the flavours of sunbaked earth and warm winds, of lemon and olive oil and thyme and sesame enveloped them.

It was, indeed, exactly the right meal to dispel the murky darkness awaiting them.

Once the dishes had been cleared away, Magda brought out more sunshine: an orange, olive oil and pine nut cake and a fruit salad which sparkled in all the colours of the rainbow; pomegranate, blood oranges, yellow pears, kiwi, blueberries, plums.

They talked late into the evening, lingering over their dessert plates, picking the fruit bowl clean.

They spoke of the music that moved each of them most, they spoke of Eve and Magda’s writing and of their favourite books, they spoke of art, food, and of a little house on the edge of a cliff that looked out over the ocean. Richard and Eve had been planning to move out there one day. One day.

When at last it was time to go, Richard and Eve rose from the table, hugged David and Magda goodbye and, as though it was any other night, parted with the promise to get together again soon.

As they watched their friends disappear into the night, David and Magda remarked at the darkness of the night. It was almost possible to imagine that there was no mist, that it had all been a dream, or a movie, or their imagination. That it was just any other overcast night.

They locked the door, went upstairs and got ready for bed.

Before she turned out her light, Magda smiled and said, “that was a nice night. The dinner was good and they were the perfect people to have over on a night like tonight.”

David agreed. He turned out his light, too, and pulled Magda close.

This post was inspired by the November 1 Daily Prompt. It took me a month, but I was waiting all through NaNoWriMo to write this.

Paper and Salt attempts to recreate and reinterpret dishes that iconic authors discuss in their letters, diaries and fiction. Part food and recipe blog, part historical discussion, part literary fangirl-ing.